Florida is abuzz over plan to introduce 'mutant mosquitoes' to fight disease

Dominic Basulto, Special To The Washington Post

February 11, 2015

If you're one of those people terrified by the prospect of GMOs — genetically modified organisms — in your food supply, you'll probably be even more terrified by a planned experiment in the Florida Keys: releasing millions of GMO mosquitoes to neutralize particularly nasty strains of two deadly tropical diseases — dengue and chikungunya — that are growing threats to southern climates in the United States.

It's easy to see why people think that breeding "mutant mosquitoes" could go terribly wrong. For one thing, while the experiment targets only male, non-biting mosquitoes — genetically modifying them so that their offspring will not live past the larval stage — there is the possibility that a few females could sneak through the control process and be released into the wild.

Nobody really knows what would happen if a GMO female mosquito bit into a human. Most likely nothing, say officials from the local mosquito control district and from Oxitec, the British biotech company heading up the experiment. However, the Food and Drug Administration is still not convinced, and now some Florida residents say this biotech experiment could end up having a lot of wildly unintended consequences — sort of like a plot line straight out of "Jurassic Park," in which scientists unknowingly open up a Pandora's box by toying around with DNA.

Perhaps that's because the synthetic mosquito DNA includes fragments of genes from coral and cabbage as well as protein fragments from the herpes simplex virus and the E. coli bacteria. As a result, 145,000 people have already signed a Change.org petition asking state officials to block the experiment. Upset Floridians see themselves as guinea pigs who were not asked if they wanted to be part of this experiment. Even some scientists have raised objections, with British environmentalist Helen Wallace claiming that the GMO mosquito is "Dr. Frankenstein's monster."

"Mutant mosquitoes"? "Frankenstein monsters"? Wait, let's back up for a second and look at some of the issues.

One major concern is that this is the first time that genetically modified mosquitoes will be released close to a residential neighborhood, turning Florida Keys residents (and unknowing tourists) into guinea pigs. In fact, GMO mosquitoes have been released in the Cayman Islands (in a nonresidential location) and in Brazil (at a residential site). There were no harmful consequences in either test case, and the results were deemed so effective that there are plans for additional, larger-scale tests.

In terms of disease control, the positives far outweigh the negatives, since previous methods of controlling disease-bearing mosquitoes are no longer effective. Mosquitoes in the Florida Keys, for example, are now resistant to four of the six insecticides used to kill them. It's even possible to quantify these positives. With GMO mosquitoes, you kill at least 80 percent — and as many as 96 percent — of all disease-bearing mosquitoes.

Translator

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

Finally, there are concerns over ripple effects to the environment and the surrounding ecosystem. The Change.org petition, for example, cites the potential risk to Florida Keys bats. However, the mosquitoes being targeted are an invasive species: They don't belong in the ecosystem in the first place. Secondly, they comprise only a very, very small percentage of all mosquitoes in the Keys — less than 1 percent, according to molecular biologist Christie Wilcox. In other words, you're not releasing a giant swarm of "mutant mosquitoes."

Remember: The mosquitoes in the Florida Keys are headed to mainland Florida next. And there are no vaccines for either dengue or chikungunya. That makes stopping them early — when they first arrive from the Caribbean — a priority. Overall, in the weighing of risk and rewards, this biotech experiment with GMO mosquitoes is a net gain. And if it cuts down the mosquito population, an invasive species no less, it would seem like a good thing.

Releasing GMO mosquitoes into the wild may appear to be a first-of-its-kind experiment, but it is really just a continuation of other experiments that scientists are already conducting with DNA. And it's not just modifying organisms that we already know about (such as mosquitoes)_ it's the creation of entirely new ones via the manipulation of DNA using the latest tools of synthetic biology. Like it or not, modifying DNA via biotech and creating synthetic organisms are part of the future.

In some cities, such as New York and San Francisco, there are even DIY "biohacking" collectives: groups of people (with or without any formal training in biology) who come together to hack genetic code in a lab the same way programmers hack computer code. That type of experimentation would seem to represent more of a risk to society than a controlled experiment handled by a British biotech company with a track record of success. As proof of how confident it is, Oxitec has even suggested public safety demonstration cases, in which researchers reach their arms into a cage of GMO mosquitoes to prove that none of them are biting.

We are going to continue to have these debates about "creepy" genetically modified organisms. But it's important to base concerns and decisions on science, not on plotlines out of "Jurassic Park" or "The Butterfly Effect." It's good to have debates about GMOs, of course, but fears of Frankenstein mosquitoes are way overblown.